Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Fixing Hearthstone 3a: Fixes That Fix Nothing

By now you have seen or played the new and “improved” Unleash
the Hounds. For the uninitiated, the
cost of Unleash was raised from 2 to 3.
This change, as it turns out, does have a couple of tangible effects: First, it slows down the terrible Leeroy
Jenkins combos that continue to stand in defiance of the Card Balance
Philosophy document Ben Brode posted in January by one turn; second, it slows
down the card draw engine of Starving Buzzard and Unleash the Hounds used in
combination by one turn.

Now ordinarily, this would be the place where I’d make a
joke that literacy is optional in the Hearthstone design department; however, I
cannot make such a joke because it is too obvious and I wouldn’t want to
disparage any of the Hearthstone design team’s reading tutors. I’m sure the tutors are working very hard.

The reality is the change to Unleash the Hounds doesn’t
actually fix anything. Terrible Leeroy
Jenkins-based combos are still in the game, contrary to a design standard
that was written almost half a year ago.
The standard for single turn damage output that was set by the arbitrary
nerf to Pyroblast is still being violated by those combos. The base set still has gaping holes in it;
the feature set is still criminally inadequate in Friendly and Casual play, all
while Ben Brode is changing the changes of the changing meta that is changing
every week and will increase the flux of changes with the release of Naxxramas! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psq83bosG60)

The base set design is still way too Legendary centric at
the high end of the mana range, and low mana cost minions are way too
powerful. I realize the business sense
of creating an environment where F2P players feel like they have an even chance
against paying players while providing the carrot of the Power 6 to induce
players to over spend on card packs.
That said, the goal of the community and the design team should be to
make the best possible game for all players, not just the top .001% of players
that are going to get invites to Blizzcon, or that get 5000+ views on Twitch.

The Hearthstone community is clamoring for
earnest change that affects the game in a positive way. While a change like this to UTH might placate
the most vocal forum whiners, some number of which know virtually nothing about
Hearthstone or CCGs in general, those of us with any experience whatsoever are
still waiting for the Hearthstone design team to set aside its collective
hubris, read the Card Balance Philosophy document for comprehension, understand
what Casual CCG play really is, and finally get Hearthstone out of the Alpha
development phase.

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